March 25, 2016

GATE -- ep 24

And... it was a satisfying ending. Very satisfying. It doesn't wrap up the whole story, by any means, but it wraps up a lot of sub-stories, and there was some wonderful combat, and it ended on an upbeat note.

Tyuule seems to have Stockholm Syndrome, and it couldn't happen to a nicer bitch. I was hoping she'd get shot, but I guess the author needed her for some other mischief later. (Perhaps
Delilah will eventually find her and have a showdown.)

Rory and Lelei make a great combat team; it's a perfect match up of skills and powers. They complement each other beautifully. It was awesome watching both of them going all out against a worthy opponent. (Not all that worthy, though; they wiped him out in about 45 seconds.)

I hope Italica has a red-light district, so that Mizari and Tyuwaru have somewhere to go. They sure can't go to Arnus and there is probably a warrant out for Mizari in the capital after the previous episode.

Anyway, the second series had a slow center section, with too much politics and intrigue and not enough Lelei. But the last two episodes made that good. It leaves us feeling good and looking forward to an announcement of a third series, when and if.

As long as there's plenty of money around, I would guess that one city is about as good as another for prostitutes like Mizari and Tyuwaru. And Italica is very prosperous recently, and any city that size is probably going to have a red light district. Besides which, the JSDF owes them both. So I suspect Mizari and Tyuwaru probably won't have any difficulty in Italica.

Princess Pina
has a lot of debts to pay, eventually. She isn't in a position to do anything about it yet, but she isn't going to forget. (It isn't in character for her; she's quite honorable.)

I can't really think of anything she could do for Rory except maybe make a huge contribution to Emroy's temple, or to decide that henceforth Emroy will be the official god of the empire. Or maybe pledge that Rory herself will be the official god once she ascends 40 years hence.

As for the JSDF, what they want is peace and prosperity, which is about what she wants too. So that part's fine.

But she's got a huge debt to Lelei, Tuka, and Yao. I wonder what she'll do for them come the day.

Good, but not great. You're quite correct about that fight scene... would like to have seen more of Lelei's 'Gates of Babylon.'

There was a moment at the end, when
back in Tokyo, Itami mentioned "...one year ago...." I thought that was the hint the Gate was going to close I expected the rug to be pulled out from under me, but it didn't happen.

Lots still to wrap up; the looming 3-way Imperial civil war (recall the other brother skedaddled some eps back), no hard data on when the Gate will close - what if it unexpectedly did when some combination of Pina, the Emperor, and Rory were in Japan? - and both the Pied Piper and Tyuule's teleports-in-the-shadow's orc still at large.

First season was a '10.' Putting a third of second season on rails was annoying, so an '8'. Much re-watch potential, esp the fights. My wife has become a HUGE Kuribayashi fan. Thanks for covering this one, Steven.

In the most recently translated manga issue, her sister spills some funnels out of her bag--she had brought them along as a simple way to demonstrate the Munroe Effect. Clearly, she was inspired by the Panzerfaust 3s that the squad used against the Flame Dragon.

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